Birch Barlow
Birchibald "Birch" T. Barlow (voiced by Harry Shearer on "Sideshow Bob Roberts" and Maurice LaMarche on "You Kent Always Say What You Want"). He is a conservative talk show host on the radio station KBBL, who in voice and appearance is modeled after Rush Limbaugh. As of "You Kent Always Say What You Want", he also has a show on Fox News, and serves as a parody of Fox News conservative bias.
On his radio show, he declares himself to be "the fourth branch of government" and "the fifty-first state". He is also the author of the book Only Turkeys Have Left Wings. Barlow plays an important part in the episode "Sideshow Bob Roberts", in which Sideshow Bob, while jailed, calls Barlow on his radio show, giving Bob an outlet to voice how the prison treats him unfairly. Barlow, knowing Bob is a fellow Republican, sympathizes with his complaints, and influences the rest of Springfield to as well. This leads to Bob's prompt release and ensuing mayoral election-rigging.
Barlow also appears in the episode "We're on the Road to D'ohwhere" as a customer at Marge's prescription drug-laden "yard sale", a reference to Limbaugh's Oxycontin addiction. Most recently Barlow appears with other Springfield Republicans in the episode "E Pluribus Wiggum", in which he tells Lisa to make Ralph Wiggum decide whether he wants to run for President as a Republican or a Democrat.
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Famous quotes containing the word birch:
“The birch stripped of its bark, or the charred stump where a tree has been burned down to be made into a canoe,—these are the only traces of man, a fabulous wild man to us. On either side, the primeval forest stretches away uninterrupted to Canada, or to the “South Sea”; to the white man a drear and howling wilderness, but to the Indian a home, adapted to his nature, and cheerful as the smile of the Great Spirit.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)